In the wake of constantly
deteriorating security situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) owing to
heightened turbulence, exasperated and outraged Indian political and military
leadership and Indian public are getting restless. 750,000 Indian security
forces have been unable to quell the wave of protests that spiraled after the
martyrdom of Burhan Wani in July 2016.

The girl students in IOK have
also joined the protests and are hurling stones on the soldiers. No one in
Kashmir fear the Indian soldiers firing bullets, using chili pellet guns and applying
brutal tactics. The world and human rights bodies have begun to take note of
the atrocities in Kashmir and hardly a day passes without the foreign
newspapers carrying stories and pictures of clashes in Kashmir. Many in India
are saying that Kashmir is slipping out of the hands of India. India’s veterans
have joined the critics saying that the counter measures taken are insufficient
and more force should be used to put fear into the hearts of Kashmiris.

Not knowing how to deal with the uprising and to answer
the questions of foreign critics, India has been trying to distract the
attention of its home and foreign audiences by blaming Pakistan that it is
abetting terrorism in Kashmir. While carrying out unprovoked firing across the
LoC in Kashmir, engineering false flag operations and fake surgical strikes, Indian
military leaders areheaving threats that India is considering punitive actions
against Pakistan for allegedly supporting cross-border terrorism.Last year and
this year, Indian and Pakistani forces exchanged some of the heaviest fire in
years along the Line of Control [LoC] in Kashmir.

The Indian army chief after threatening to carry out a
hard strike at a place of its choosing claimed on May 23 that it had destroyed
several Pakistani posts across the LoC.He has often hurled threat of limited
war based on Cold Start doctrine. The Indian air chief after alerting the IAF
to be ready for a major task threatened that Pak nuclear sites will be
destroyed. Pakistan Army rubbished Indian claims and also gave befitting
response to all acts of aggression.

India also created an
impression that it had succeeded in diplomatically isolating Pakistan and that
people of Baluchistan, Gilgit and AJK were supportive of India. Indian
political leaders threatened to dry up Pakistan by closing water of the three
rivers flowing into Pakistan from IOK and to fragment Pakistan into four parts.

RAW accelerated terror
attacks in Baluchistan and elsewhere with the help of its proxies including ISIS
(Daesh) based at Nangarhar/Tora Bora. Besides signing defense agreements with
USA in 2016, India has speeded up force modernization of Indian armed forces
and is frenetically building up its nuclear and conventional defense and
offence capabilities. Ostensibly this is being done to make India a bulwark
against China. But 80% of India’s strike formations are poised against
Pakistan. The US Director Defence Intelligence Agency Lt Gen Vincent Stewart
stated on May 23, ‘India was updating its military to better position itself to
defend India’s interests in the Indian Ocean region and strengthen its
diplomatic and economic outreach across Asia’.

To maximize pressure on
Pakistan, India nudged Kabul and Tehran to heat up Pakistan’s western and
southwestern borders and both obliged India. Donald Trump in his Afghan policy speech
last August, maximized pressure on Islamabad by accusing it that it was
involved in proxy war and was still supporting Haqqani network and Afghan
Taliban. Mounting tensions have lowered down as a consequence to visits of
Khawaja Asif to Washington and Rex Tillerson to Islamabad.

Panama case kept Pakistan’s
political temperature on the boil. It led to disqualification of PM Nawaz
Sharif for life followed by initiation of corruption cases by accountability
court against him and his family. Although the new PM KhaqanAbbasi has steadied
the tottering ship, the overall political climate is wobbly. Some say that
crisis have been brewed up by vested groups to derail the political
dispensation, disrupt CPEC and other development projects and to pave the way
for India to wage a war against destabilized Pakistan.

For all the dogmatic war
mongering hyped in every Indian medium, India will never wage a war against
Pakistan and if it commits the blunder, it cannot win a war. Verbose threats,
surgical strikes, cross-border firing or boisterous bawling on TV channels are
all signs of pent up frustration and an effort to let off steam.

The sooner Indian hawkish
leaders appreciate this politico-military reality, better it will be for India.
Short of total genocide, no country regardless of its war-withal could hope to
achieve a decisive victory with a “short war” in today’s world.

India has seen the sorry plight of USA and NATO in the
16-year war on terror and the financial loss it incurred ($ 2.10 trillion in
Afghanistan and Iraq alone) and human losses (6623) they have suffered and so
far have not achieved any of their objectives.
Era of short and decisive war is over. USA had promised a short war in
Afghanistan but it has not come out of it till to date.

Pakistan has adequately compensated for its inferiority in
conventional power by maintaining full spectrum nuclear deterrence and
achieving nuclear parity with India. India’s stratagem of achieving superiority
in men and material to overawe Pakistan is a weak strategy and has failed to
overawe Pakistan. Pak Army’s stunning gains against foreign backed terrorism
has astounded the world and shot up its image. It is now the hardiest Army of
the world and is looked upon with respect.

Despite Pakistan’s handicaps and India’s
superior diplomatic clout, Pakistan has managed to sail past the rough patch
and today it finds itself in a better geopolitical position and seem to have
turned the tables on India which had schemed to destabilize it, denuclearize
it, isolate and strategically encircle it and then deliver the military
instrument to Balkanize it.

Decades of mutual cooperation, technology transfer,
training, equipment sales, have bonded the two armies of Pakistan and China into
a formidable joint force. The duo has achieved sufficient intimacy and
understanding to carry out joint missions against India.

Pakistan’s fast-trackedaccomplishments in nuclear
technology, missile delivery systems, logistic supply chain of equipment, and
spares as well as new-age technologies such as cyber and drone warfare are all
the result of close cooperation between the two countries.

In contrast, India has not even been able to
integrate its three services, what to speak of assimilation with political
leadership, industry, academia and indigenous defense capabilities.

While Pak Army having successfully fought
the insurrectional war for 14 years is fully battle inoculated and motivated,
Indian military has gained no such experience and its performance against
Kashmiri freedom fighters, Naxalites and host of other insurgent groups in
various parts of India is dismal. Indian Army is suffering from inertia,
sagging morale and ever rising moral and discipline problems.

Indian armed forces still have over 60% of
Russian origin defense arsenal which has become obsolete and absorption of
western technology will take considerable length of time. This incongruity has
affected India’s war preparedness.

India has been investing
tens of billions in updating its Soviet-era military hardware to counter
long-standing tensions with regional rivals China and Pakistan and is the
largest importer of arms. It is now planning to produce defense equipment
locally. Defence and nuclear up-gradation is at the cost of alleviation of
poverty stricken of great majority.

Praveen Sahwneyhas mentioned in his book
“The Dragon on our doorsteps,” India has primarily focused on developing its
military arsenal whereas Pakistan and China have been developing war waging
capabilities, which is a synthesis of many strengths other than just military
force.

Whereas Russia is still a strategic partner of India,
however, warmth of yester years has cooled after India signed three defense
deals with USA last year. Unlike in the past, Russia is now a strategic partner
of China and has friendly relations with USA under Trump. It is gradually
getting closer to Pakistan and finding space in Afghanistan.Iran’s coolness
with Pakistan is fast fading and GCC States misunderstandings with Pakistan has
faded.

Notwithstanding the Indo-US strategic alliance, the US
cannot afford to lose Pakistan which certainly has a lot of say in Afghan
tangle. It has no choice but to continue supporting Pakistan financially and
militarily to ensure continuity of logistics supply for its troops and for its
safe exit from Afghanistan. On the other hand Pakistan’s dependence on the US
has reduced dramatically with China filling in the gap. Pakistan has clearly
stated that it needs mutually beneficial trade and not aid.

China’s economic aspirations and access to the Arabian Sea
through CPEC and Gwadar seaport is a strategic masterstroke by Pakistan and
China. 63% of CPEC is complete while Gwadar Port can get converted into a naval
base in the event of war. Not only it is a win-win for the duo but it is also a
“lose-lose” for India since CPEC has broken India’s plan to encircle and
isolate Pakistan and has landed itself and Afghanistan into the mold of
isolation. Full operationalization of CPEC can break the US strategic
encirclement of China around South China Sea and China’s dependence on Malacca
Strait.

China’s One-Belt-One-Road (OBOR) project of which CPEC is
the linchpin has welded the two neighbors into permanent partners. With its
heavy economic stakes in Pakistan, China is bound to come to the aid of
Pakistan whenever its security is threatened.

Baluchistan, AJK, Gilgit-Baltistanand some vulnerable
points along the CPEC in Punjab and Sindhmarked as possible targets by India
have become exceedingly perilousobjectives for India in the wake of possibility
of China’s intervention, thereby precluding the possibility of Indian military action.

Indian former Army Officer Raghu Raman says
that “any Indian operation that endangers thousands of Chinese citizens working
on the CPEC project in Pakistan will draw the wrath of China and give them the
loco standi to initiate hostilities against India. So beyond shallow skirmishes
all along the border, India really has no operational or strategic options
without the risk of drawing China into a two-front war.”

Although India has posed a two-front threat
to Pakistan, Pakistan military has correctly appreciated that the force levels
which India will be able to muster against it will be more or less evenly
matched, and in the event of Indo-Pak hostilities, it can depend on China for its
logistics supply chain as well as splitting the Indian armed forces’ resources
and focus by deploying PLA divisions along the border with India. This would in
effect, pin down a substantial part of the Indian Army’s reserves to cater for
the eastern front.

India also know that now there are too many
stakeholders dependent on the success of the OBOR/CPEC project and any
disturbance in this area would be attributed to India’s truculence.

Under the circumstances, Indian covert or
overt intrusion to scuttle CPEC will earn her a bad name. Likewise, by staying
away from composite dialogue with Pakistan to settle disputes will depict India
as an obdurate country incapable of setting aside bilateral issues for the
larger good of the region.

For the fulfilment of Modi’s ambition to
improve the economy of India, the fulcrum for development is stable and
peaceful environment and not war mongering and disturbed border. War clouds are
an antithesis for economic investments. Even preparation for war costs billions
of dollars in terms of resources. Already the covert and propaganda wars
unleashed against Pakistan has cost India millions of dollars. India can
scarcely afford to go to war when millions of Indian youth are entering the job
market whose un-channelised energies is another potential risk.

For a nation to go to war, all its pillars
of strength, including its military, economic prowess, industrial capability,
external alliances and national will must be aligned in a singular direction to
achieve meaningful success. India is engulfed in too many internal
vulnerabilities and can ill afford to wage an all-out war with nuclear
Pakistan.

While IOK is slipping out of India’s hands,
the story is no different in Afghanistan where Taliban are gaining ground and
turning the tide.

There is an old couplet by RamdhariDinkar
which suggests that forgiveness befits a snake which has venom in its bite—not
one which is weak, toothless, and harmless. To be taken seriously, India needs
to build that strength first rather than spewing ineffectual rhetoric.”

The only option India has against Pakistan is the Covert
War supplemented with Hybrid War. At best it may resort to limited attacks close
to the border and LoC, which will be effectively retaliated by Pakistan.